<p>Hornet, yes, Grinnell knows. For one thing, the common app asks for some information about your parents - I listed my parent’s marital status as “widowed” and put in the date of my dad’s death. Also, I wrote my main common app essay on how his death got me interested in my favorite EC, genealogy. I tried to show that I was able to focus my pain onto a positive activity, rather than becoming a drug addict or whatever.</p>
<p>However, I tried not to go too crazy with talking about his death, because I did not want it to seem like I was making excuses, and I also didn’t want to seem mentally unhealthy/severely depressed. The point I tried to make was basically “his death hurt me a lot (see junior year grades) … but I overcame it (see senior year grades)”. I am not sure how clearly this came across, though. I saw my teacher recommendations and they checked “top few encountered in my career” in the category “overcoming obstacles”, but they didn’t really elaborate on it too much. Neither did my counselor. And if I try to explain it, it feels like I am making excuses. So that is why I am considering asking my English teacher.</p>
<p>I just can’t figure out why I got waitlisted/rejected to all of my schools (other than safeties). Everyone that I have talked to seems to agree with you, hornet, that my grade dip was minor and shouldn’t have hurt me. My overall GPA was 3.75, and while that is not amazing, I feel like it is not outside Grinnell’s range. Also, my SATs were 2210. Plus, the schools that I applied to supposedly consider “the whole person” rather than just the numbers. If anything, I thought that this way of evaluating applicants would help me rather than hurt me. I really don’t understand why/how this happened.</p>